WWDC Keynote Thoughts [Updated]
This is going to be a pseudo-live blog post; basically, I’m writing as it happens, and will just post it at the end of the event. I’m also about an hour late in getting started, so I’ll just jump right in…
A lot of folks (including the live commentators at Engadget) have been complaining about the volume of 3rd party demos in the keynote thus far. While I do agree that at 11:00 they seem to be continuing with no end in sight, I think it’s sort of a good move on Apple’s part to really play up the mass-adoption of the iPhone SDK and showcase as many different ways of using it as possible while the cameras are rolling. I wouldn’t read too much into the current stock drop being indicative of anything… Apple’s stock always plummets during and after the Keynote because Jesus did not, in fact, appear on stage as predicted.
Some of these apps are pretty slick. The games all look fabulous, and the social2.0 location-aware apps from Loopt and Associated Press sound very impressive. The push notification service sounds impressive, though I’m sure a lot of folks will question the stability and scalability of a unified point for all service updates to the user’s iPhone… RIM’s service outages and .Mac’s occasional freak-outs come to mind as negative points here…
New features in the 2.0 software look cool: full Office and iWork document support, bulk message delete (yay!), save images from emails, scientific mode calculator (also yay) and contact search are niceties. The parental controls aren’t really that fascinating to me, but that may be due to my lack of parentaling duties. The $10 price point for the Touch2.0 update is also a much nicer pill to swallow than the $20 update for 1.1.3.
Mobile Me: Still not 100% sure about the name of the service, but if the stills from Engadget and MacRumors are anything to go by, this is going to totally kick .Mac’s ass in the usability and awesomeness categories. Still $99/year, but they’ve kindly doubled the storage to 20GB. Huzzah! And I can finally view my calendar online! Huzzah again! Early July, with the iPhone software update. Not quite as huzzah, but I’ll take it. No mention of bookmark sync to Windows Safari though… grr…
Cheap As Free iPhones! 8GB for $199, 16GB for $299, whee! Now, drop the price on the plan and I’ll sell my Touch ;). Seriously, I love my Touch, but the lack of reliable Wifi around here is kind of a killer (there’s plenty in downtown Spokane, but it’s not free, and the signal is questionable… to say nothing of coverage out here in the Valley). Just wish AT&T’s plans weren’t so damned expensive. There’s even 3G coverage out here, so I’d be set for data, I’d just be broke at the same time. 
I’ll be interested to hear what comes of the 10.6 stuff after lunch, provided any of it is allowed out of the session…
Update: After reading through Apple’s information on Mobile Me, it appears that syncing of bookmarks across platforms (and even browsers) is supported, though Firefox doesn’t appear to be included in that support. Still, cross-platform Safari bookmark sync is something that should have been built-in from day 1 of the Windows Safari release for .Mac users, so at least that much is working now. I still might stick with Firefox and Delicious on both platforms because bookmark tags are my new best friend, but I’ll see what Mobile Me’s sync capabilities are before making a final decision there. I’m also interested in seeing if there are any improvements to iDisk’s performance in store for this upgrade, because that’s been a decidedly torturous experience in the past (though Comcast’s draconian upload speed certainly does nothing to help).